Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Updates on Duke Lacrosse

The ACC Basketblog has a series of links on today's post about the Duke lacrosse situation, and all are worthy of a read. I channel-surfed on Monday night and caught Dan Abrams on MSNBC, and he was on the verge of saying that the Durham D.A. is about to drop the charges. Abrams, no shrinking violet, had access to all sorts of documents and expressed his incredulity about why the charges were brought in the first place. In addition, I am friendly with a member of the HS lacrosse cognoscenti who apprised me of facts pertinent to the situation that cast light on dysfunction in the Duke administration regarding how disciplinary cases are handled. I do find Coach K's commentary in defending his now former fellow coach of the "too little, too late" category, and I'm hoping to ask my friend the insider to guest blog on the topic of the case.

As you probably recall, I expressed my concerns about the program's being out of control because 15 of the 47 players had misdemeanors for misbehavior. At no time did I attempt to try or convict them of the rape accusations and made it very clear that the two had to be separated. I continue to believe that if roughly 1/3 of your kids have misdemeanors there's a systemic problem. That said, the question remains as to how the Duke administration handled these incidents and whether the Duke lacrosse coach was made aware of many of them and given the opportunity to clean them up. My guess is that more of this will come up as the stories continue to unfold about not only the rape accusations, but the handling of the men's lacrosse program in general.

7 Comments:

There is no way the Duke lacrosse trial would have a prayer in front of a jury. The defense would move for dismissal after the DA presented his case, and the judge would grant the motion. My sources tell me that the stripper showed up drunk to the party, couldn't perform (at least not in a satisfactory way), and then made up the story after the players wouldn't pay her. My view is that the student-athletes should not have arranged for a stripper to perform at a housing facility owned by the University, or at least that the University should have a specific prohibition against such activities in on-campus housing. Even at a private facility, it's probably not terribly smart for the players to get involved with that kind of thing, as they have all found out the hard way. That said, I can recall seeing at least one stripper at an off-campus private facility (later deemed to be part of a group of buildings designated as a "public accommodation" by an administrative law judge) during my undergraduate days 25 years ago. I believe her name was "Chesty Colt and her 45s," although I am not sure what her numerical quotient would be at this point in time, a quarter of a century later.

The strippers made the false accusation, but the DA used it. Hiring of strippers shouldn't be discouraged, it's the miscunduct of public officials who use blantantly false claims as a spring board for personal gain that should be discouraged.

I think hiring strippers should definitely be discouraged. That doesn't mean that the DA's actions shouldn't be discouraged too, but let's not forget what the players actually did (by their own admission).

I'd be more concerned about the criminal records of so many NBA players, not the small potatoes stuff the Duke lacrosse players have been involved with. Kids hear about what the NBA players do and think that's all right.

Did you (Sports Prof) say anything about the Duke players' misdemeanors BEFORE the rape allegations came up? If not, it sure sounds like you were using those pissant charges to imply that the rape charges made sense. Big mistake.

As for Mr. Salmon's, I didn't know of the other offenses until the rape charges came up. That said, I was very careful to distinguish between the severity of the rape charges and the behavioral issues the misdemeanors suggested. If you were to go back and read my posts, you'll clearly discern that I did nothing of the sort of what you implied that I did. The rape charges are very serious and appear to be a big mistake on the part of the Durham D.A.(and I did not jump to the conclusion that just because the misdemeanors existed meant that the lacrosse team was guilty of felonies). The misdemeanors aren't really pissant charges -- not when they apply to almost 1/3 of the team. Then there is a problem -- perhaps not worthy of national attention -- but worthy of on-campus correction. This week's SI has a good piece on the entire sequence of events.

It's been fascinating to watch the media feeding frenzy that has been the coverage of the Duke Lacrosse incident. Wrote a short analysis of the NYTimes' "orgy" over Duke vs. their lack of coverage of the racial and sexual discrimination case against Penn State and coach Rene Portland.